The Press Box - Kendrick Lamar's 'Damn.' With Sean Fennessey, Micah Peters, and Justin Charity (Ep. 296)

Episode Date: April 14, 2017

The Ringer's Sean Fennessey, Micah Peters, and Justin Charity discuss Kendrick Lamar's new release, 'Damn.' (5:00). Topics include: the collabs on the album (11:00), the logical progression of K-Dot (17:00), Kendrick's taste (22:00), his grand design (30:00), his influence on fellow rappers (34:00), and a ranking of Kendrick's albums (38:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello and welcome to a special channel 33 podcast. My name is Sean Fennacy. I'm the editor-in-chief of The Ringer. I'm here in the Ringer Studios in Los Angeles, joined by two Ringer employees. Staff writer Michael Peter is sitting beside me. Michael, what's up?

What, go on. And in New York, which is not Los Angeles, Ringer staff writer, Justin Charity. Justin, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. So we're here to talk about Kendrick Lamar. It's K.Dade. Day, his new album, Damn, is now available on all streaming services and in stores where they sell CDs, which are few these days. Justin, you wrote about Damn this morning on The Ringer, a really smart and good piece.

You know, I'll open this conversation by telling a candid story. I really noticed Justin as a writer a few years ago when he wrote something that was very provocative and thoughtful about to pimp a butterfly, which is Kendrick's. last official full-length record. And I was very curious the moment Dam hit to know what you thought of the record. So why don't you just distill that essence into podcast form right now, Justin? Sure. I mean, you know, when I was listening through the first couple times last night to Dam, the thought I kept having, no matter what song I was on,

was it wasn't even necessarily about Kendrick. It was about the nature of rapping and how all of the flows and all of the different song structures on Dam really underscore the idea that rapping requires like muscular definition

and it's just like the rapping is so muscular all over the album and Kendrick is doing so many different things and his rapping is incredibly well-toned and varied and physical

and sort of like inexhaustible and you know I'm conscious I'm cautious about saying that in a way that makes it sound like the album is just rapidy rap because there's a certain, like, I think, stigma of thinking about, you know, lyricism versus non-laricism and contemporary rap music.

Is Kendrick the new supernatural? You know, I want, you know, I mean, I think musically the album is gorgeous in a lot of different spots, But I've just never really appreciated Kendrick as a rapper in just a pure athletic sense as much as I do on Dam so far. Yeah, that was the word that I was going to point out that you used was athletic, which I think could be used as a pejorative in some ways because it's just about flexing. It's just about showing what you're capable of as opposed to this thing we think about with Kendrick, which is that he is a, he's a person with a point of view. He's a person with a point.

and, Mike, like, do you feel like there's something lost on this album in him being so fervent and so, like, alive and so athletic? No, I think that, well, the issue with, like, to Piper Butterfly, I think, was that there was, there were so many competing things in, I mean, a literal, and a thematic sense. Like, I mean, a cosmetic, anthematic sense, like, you have gelatinous g-funk, you have, like, every, like, every, sound from Cape Town to Compton and just this sprawling like meditation on race from every perspective you can think of. It's so dense that you can't, you don't know what to do with it. You didn't know what to do with it immediately after it came out. A lot of Kamasi, Washington.

Yeah. And I think here at least a lot of things are, like a lot of things are peeled back. It's still very layered and very complex. but I think that I mean like it's simplicity is well not even simplicity but even just being more simple than Tipin Butterfly was

I think makes it stand out more if that makes sense and on top of that I mean like there's a lot of the things that we're missing on the last album like DNA like the first like really rapidy rap rap song on the album is, you know, like produced by Michael made it.

If you had complaints about how All right was the only record on the last album that had, you know, actual a bass line and drums to it. Like, he's just like, right, here's some bass for your ass. Here's some raps for your ass. Whatever, whatever, whatever. And, I mean, to be sure, the beat switch that happens with like about a minute and a half left, I'd literally crawled up into my desk chair to get away from it. It was so grotesque.

It was great. That seems like a very purposeful choice by him, right? If you look at the album cover, if you look at the humble video, if you look at all the things he's communicating about this album, it is very much in some ways, either a companion or defiance of the last couple of projects, which are much more vivy, much more emotional, much more social in a way. And this is a, this is a fuck you in a lot of ways.

We do agree with that, Justin? Well, can I, I would actually say, I know that, Mike would just use the word simpler. I would maybe alternatively suggest that this is a more seamless album than the top of a butterfly. Because to me it's like, I mean, this is still a record, right? Where on the one hand you have a U2 song and on the other hand you have a Mike Will made it produced crunk record, basically. Like there's still a lot of... The U2 song is also Mike Will produced.

Yeah, right. And it works fantasticly. But I mean, he still has his hand across a lot of different dimensions on this album in the way that he also had his hand across multiple dimensions on the last couple of projects. But I think the difference is that this is the first time where that sort of variation and experimentation feels like Kendrick sort of rode the wave from start to finish without really falling off or even wobbling. Whereas, like, I think something like to be.

Pempa Butterfly gets a bit over... Like, there are songs on Tipa Butterfly where, you know, I think this drink is too strong. It's too strong for Kendrick Lamar. He's a great rapper. These songs are great, but he's kind of... Think of the key changes on Tipa Butterfly,

which are much more jarring and abrupt, whereas there are key changes all over this. You know, there are basically whole song overhauls in the middle of songs on this album. But they just feel more seamless because it just feels like Kendrick, again, on the strength of that, athleticism. I feel like he's just in control.

Like, you know he's the star of this record in a way that was maybe harder for that to come across when he was doing these very big George Clinton, Ferell, Kamazi Washington records. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about some of the collaborators and guests on this album because it felt like Kendrick was working with an orchestra on the last record, but also performing a one-man show. It kind of seemed like he was just kind of screaming into the void a lot of times, even just the way that his voice is treated on that record. This one, I'd say the choices are more commercial if you count Mike Will and Rihanna and Bono as commercial companions.

But by the same token, you know, Soundwave is kind of up and down on every song as a long-time producer. A lot of the TDE and house guys are working. And then, you know, also James Blake, I would not describe as the most commercial collaborator and he has a production credit here. Michael, what do you think about the choices that he made and who he chose to connect with? I think that, like, to Pim Vodify was like a product of a certain community. Like, I mean, like, that was Terrace Martin, Thundercat, and a WISE. All those were like very, like they were basically picked from a very specific place. And even though he picks from a bunch of disparate places on this record, it fits.

more together because it seems like it's the choices that he wanted to make versus being slave to, I guess, the idea that he started with. This is like changing it as he goes along. Now I'm going to pull in Bad Bad Not Good or Steve Lacey or a DJ Dahie record, so on so forth. I think that the choices he makes, I mean, we've already said it before, like they work so much better. So on top of that, I'm just really happy to see, like, any, I'm always happy to see Steve Lacey, like, get work on, like, larger albums. So explain for listeners who Steve Lacey is. He's an interesting story.

Steve Lacey is a, he might, is he 18 now, or is he 17? I'm pretty sure he's 17. Anyway, like, he's, like, of senior in high school age. He was, he is the guitarist for the internet, which is a band fronted by. Sid, who also put out an album this year called Finn. Fine, if you want to be extremely, like, you know, technical about it. Al Francai. Yeah.

But they all put out a bunch of solo projects. Matt Martians, who is the producer, put out drum chord theory. Steve Lacey put out Steve Lacey's demo, which is fantastic. There's a song on there. There's like a couplet that goes from, there's a song called Ride into dark red. And that is probably like 10 of my favorite minutes of music, like, released so far this year.

Like, I mean, anyway, he's getting more and more work. And I like, I like to see it happening because his sound is so interesting. And yeah, he does a lot of his production on his iPhone. Yeah, he's a very, um, he kind of feels like when I read about him, he strikes me as like a bad cliche of like what dumb parents think millennials are, like skateboarding kids who just like use their phone to make shit. And in a lot of ways he does it, but in a very beautiful way, like the texture and the tone of his music is really amazing,

even though there's an interesting story in Wired this morning about how he just kind of uses a cracked iPhone 5S, shout out to Drake, and just like plugs it into an amp. And that's how he produces songs for Kendrick Lamar. There's something kind of beautiful about that. Justin, what do you think about, for example, the flex of bringing Bono into the Kendrick Lamar universe? I mean, that's what Kendrick, I just feel like that's what Kendrick does, right? I mean, if there is a, from Section 80 on, right, I feel like Kendrick, and I talk about this in the piece that I wrote for the ringer today, but if still Friday.

But, you know, I feel like his albums are different enough from one another, and they have different ambitions. And it's weird, too, because he uses a lot of the same musicians across these albums, but the soundscapes feel very different from one another. And also the concepts feel very different from one another. And so I don't just look at Bono being on this album as a flex. I also look at it as Kendrick, you know, sort of reaching for this idea of what's next? What's the thing that I haven't done that people think you can't do on a quintessential, you know, Compton rap album, but that I can pull off and that my producers can help me pull off in a way that feels totally hip-hop. And he totally pulled it up.

It feels like, you know, there are a lot of things you could have thought that a U-2 record or U-2 collaboration on this album would have sounded like. and it sounds way cooler than all of those things. Honest question for both of you guys. If you didn't see the track list and the song was played for you blind, do you think you would have been able to pick out that it's Bono? I wouldn't have been able to do it. I don't think so. I played this game with my wife last night and she failed too,

which is an interesting thing to let Bono, who has one of the most iconic voices and personas in the last 50 years of music, be subsumed by the Kendrick Vision? you know, that's pretty uncommon for someone that famous. And even, you know, even this morning we were talking about Rihanna's work on the album and the fact that she is sort of more of a partner and less of a tool. I feel like a lot of times when Rihanna collaborates with people,

they try to use her as a very obvious commodifying, you're going to appear in my video participant. And this is a little different. She's much more elemental to the song. Yeah, I mean, well, it's, I think that it's, Her collaborations with, like, TD artists have been very, like, outside of her purview. Like, I mean, in a good way. Like, the consideration record with SZA was, I mean, I'd never heard her overproduction like that before.

And I mean, and here she's rapping. Like, she has bars. Like, it's actually, like, and it works. It works. It works. It works. So it works beautifully. So yeah, I mean, like it's, but I mean, going back to the Bono thing, a thing that I thought was interesting was how Kendrick kind of, okay, so initially when I was thinking about it, I was just like, all right, this is, like, the logical progression after Untitled a Master where it felt like when you were watching those performances, he was like the reincarnation of James Brown.

but really it's more of like a Curtis Mayfield type deal and there's a lot of like callbacks to 70 soul and even to classic rock and which is where like Bono comes in but distorts it in a way that it's kind of like I guess cherry picking things that happened during that period like the hidden messages like of like the fabled hidden messages of Satanism. in heavy rock ballads, which is like at the beginning of fear when it has the reverse vocals. That's like the Paul is dead. Yeah, exactly. And I, it's just,

it's an interesting, I guess, school of thought and like music and all of it put into like one, like this vessel and it works seamlessly like you were saying before, Charity. Yeah,

I think that's a good point, Charity. What do you think? I mean, well, one, I certainly agree with Mayfield as the comparison over Brown, if only because I've already argued for this website, that Young Thug is the reincarction of James Brown. This is why we're going to be friends forever, by the way. I mean, look, I think a lot of, you know,

on a song-to-song basis, I don't think this, but whenever I listen to Kendrick albums now, I just get the sense that I'm listening to neo-black exploitation soundtracks in a lot of ways, right? And like a lot of this, you know, a lot of this 70s sense that he seems to gravitate toward both, I think, in terms of sounds and even in terms of sort of these heightened comedic personas that he gravitates toward on the albums

in the skits and in the music, you know, that's sort of the era of black music and black art that I think of the most. I think of like Trouble Man and short eyes. I think of a lot of music like that, I guess, specifically. So that's a very interesting prism to see him through because he's always identified as a sort of a classicist when it comes to rapping.

Like when it comes to rap-ty-rap rapping, old heads can be like, Kendrick can go. Like he is one of the chosen few. Yeah. But it's interesting that somebody who's point of view and whose interest and whose style that it permeates the music could be identified as a continuum

of 70s artists. Usually that doesn't work very well in rap. When you're looking backward is not necessarily prized. Why do you think that for whatever reason Kendrick is identified as the future of the form instead of the past? I think Kendrick's kind of like DeAngelo, right?

Which is to say that DeAngelo is an artist, right? He's an R&B singer who clearly is like, he's basically like a black music historian. If you ever read interviews with DeAngelo, he's just clearly fascinated by the entire history of black American music and black music across the world and can tell you about any decade of black music ever. He would have made a great blogger.

He would have made a great, you would have been a very helpful blogger, very great. Strong Wiki editor. Right. Exactly. But I think of, I think, you know, I guess there are certain artists who, if they sort of, if they sort of associate with like the greatness of rap of the past, they do it in a very specific, in a very narrow way. Whereas Kendrick, it just seems like he has a regard for the past. That isn't necessarily at the expense of hip-hop's present, right? Like there are those videos of, I think, one of the times when maybe Little Wayne was rushed to the hospital for the various medical complications that Little Wayne has suffered in life where, like, Little Wayne had uploaded, I mean, where Kendrick had uploaded a video of him rapping, like, just bar for bar wrapping little Wayne mixtape cuts and just being a fan of Little Wayne.

And to me, that's the great generational sort of intersection in Kendrick Lamar. is that as much as people would say, you know, he is, he's the last guy who's continuous with Chuck D or even with someone like M&M. It's like, yeah, that's true. But Kendrick is also a guy who clearly idolizes Little Wayne, who's a guy that a lot of maybe purists or reactionaries or whatever you'd want to call them, you know, probably still loathe to this day.

Well, I mean, like Kendrick started. Like, it wasn't, I mean, like, Kendrick is, I guess was, I mean, like, the product of an age where, I mean, like, you, this is, you were born in the internet age and you started, like, you didn't start with rappers from, necessarily rappers from Compton. Like, he was infatuated with Lil Wayne first,

and then realized, and then learned about DJ Quick, et cetera, afterward. Right. He was like 17 when the drought two came out. Yeah. I mean, like, and, man, when the, like, when the drought two came out, it was, it was like, you know, it was what it was. But what I'm saying is that to go back to your being considered,

what was the question again? It was like being considered part of the future of the... Yeah, rather than the past. I think he goes because a lot of his instincts and a lot of his, even a lot of his associations that Justin is kind of shaving towards are about his sort of historical affectations that permeate his music. But people identify him, I think, in a lot of ways as the, future of the genre.

You know, I think Thug gets that delineation. Drake gets a delineation. There's a handful of people who people say, well, like, this guy is changing the art form or this woman is changing the art form in a specific direction. And he's always lumped in with that group, even though he's a formalist in some ways. And he has a real, he has that D'Angelo-esque knowledge of history. So how does he manage to, you know, supersede the past and be a part of the future? Yeah, I think that, yeah, the charity had it basically right, where it's kind of talking

about not necessarily a narrow homage. It's more like, say, pick any director, like James Gray, like picking out this, this aesthetic and this aesthetic and that thing. Like starting your album with a kind of spoken word story, much like the Shylights or having or at the beginning of, of, don't worry if there's a hell below, we're all going to go. And you have, like, the lady talking about, you know, I was reading the Bible the other day, and this will solve all of my problems.

Right. Those are conscious choices to reflect those things. Exactly. But taking it and making it his own and, like, being like, this is my worldview. And, of course, it's informed by all the things that I've experienced, but also all the things that I've consumed. but here is like we just like the product that comes out of it, I guess. But I also think that like, and it's easy to lose sight of a particular thing because maybe, you know, I think the past 10 years or so, the prominence of like original production.

But I think that this is ideally what rap does, right? like the best rappers are people who at the end of the day are taking old black music and remaking it and making it sound like stuff you've never heard in your life right like that's i mean you know just from from the idea of what sampling is right it's it's not these aren't just rappers being really good at rapping it's taking like old james brown records and old curtis mayfield records and reconstituting them and sort of radically reimagining them. And I just think that Kendrick, you know, I mean, Kendrick is one of the last guys sort of out now who, well, I would say last guys, but it, you know, a lot of people wrap over trap beats and those are all sort of like original

compositions for the most part. And Kendrick just, I think his links to the past stand out more just because he tends to wrap over his samples more than the average rapper these days. But, you know, I think he makes good use of those samples. And I think he just has really good taste in them. And so I think that's maybe why we associate him, you know. That's why we think of him through those historical lenses. It's just because his taste really, his taste underscores his choices. With a glaring exception of that really large, shitty, obvious, cynical Isley Brothers sample on the last album.

I could make the case that Imagine Dragons was a poor choice in that respect, too. I mean, so was Maroon 5. He's not impervious. Taylor Swift. And that's a good segue actually to Taylor Swift. I'd forgotten about that. Yeah, I'll never let anyone forget about that. Shame on you, Kendrick.

But you make a couple of notable points in your piece and in this conversation. Justin. One is that so much of modern rap just sounds like people listening to Atlanta and trying to iterate on Atlanta. And you almost never feel that way with Kendrick, even when he works with someone like Mike Will who is identified in that moment. But also, you mentioned earlier that there's this expectation that Kendrick is a sequel to Chuck D when in fact he's someone very different. I'm curious of, you know, what you guys think the expectation and responsibility of somebody like Kendrick is, especially given the way that he positioned himself and was then ultimately positioned after to Pimp a butterfly as a powerful voice, a voice of defiance. And then even

after the Hart Part 4 came out a couple of weeks ago, a song that very openly talked about the president, talked about the sort of the state of the country, the police. Do you feel that he has to do something on this record to address that in a formal way? Or is he free to operate in his own creative space? I think that if you're trying to be the voice from the mountain top inevitably it's going to be exhausting like so you would much or I personally would rather somebody's personal view on a thing and appreciating what they don't know and you know going only so far as you know they themselves understand rather than having it be some formal thing like this is what we should nobody should be going to a musical artist for answer

I mean, like, that's a tall ask. But at the same time, he does exist, like, he is the, I mean, the preeminent voice in that sphere of, like, conscious, quote, unquote, rap music. So, but to answer your question, no, I don't think there's any need to, like, formally address it, like, to lay it out, like, ABCD. Justin, what do you think? I've, I think that since the Blacker, the Berry, which was, you know, a single from To Pemper Butterfly, so a song's a couple years old down.

You know, that was a song where Kendrick was being very sort of programmatic and explicit and being like, this is the song where I talk about political circumstances. And a lot of people, you know, he tried, he added a layer of sort of like, you know, self-doubt and self-criticism and sort of, oh, but at the end of the day, what about black on black crime?

That I think a lot of us critics and a lot of us fans and observers generally sort of ran away with, right, and sort of said, well, who is he speaking for here? What exactly is he saying? And I think ever since that song, and ever since the sort of, I think somewhat unkind evaluation of what Kendrick was getting out on that song, I've basically thought that Kendrick is probably going to shove away from being that person who seems like he is at any point ever trying to speak for other people. And so I really don't think he, like I don't think he should be the guy that we sort of, whenever we hear even a whiff of Kendrick Lamar music, we're like,

okay, what is he going to say about Donald Trump this time? Like, I think Kendrick is probably actually allergic to that level of political engagement in his music. I think, but going back to the egregious choices of features, or the features that he's given away, I think that that went a long way towards earning this level of, like, this, this readers removed from, I guess, everything that's going. the current political climate, etc., etc., post Black of the Barry, I think that I mean, you don't,

I think that it becomes more understandable like this whole, you know, not being an authoritative voice about this thing is a view, is a, I guess, a point of view that works because of like the, because of appearing like on that

Maroon 5 song where it was like the marimbo ringtone or whatever. I can't even remember what it was. That ruined my weekend. Oh, my God. I've never listened to that song, and I won't. But it is a, it's not a pressing question necessarily. It reminded me a little bit of the moment,

I think it was last year when Schoolboy Q was about to release blank face, and he released a what turned out to be stunt album cover that was like the blank face iconography with Donald Trump's face on it. It was around the same time. that YG released FDT, and it was unclear kind of what the relationship between RAP and the president to be would become. And it almost had like kind of a sneering, very public-facing defiance. And but I think both of you guys are right. You know, Kendrick is such a personal artist and is operating from such a specific point of view that it would actually seem awkward, I think, if he tried to take up a full-time mantle doing this work.

but the level of expectation that comes with that is complicated. I guess musically, what do you guys expect from him at this point? Do you expect him to, like if there is a second record on Sunday, is there something that isn't on the album that came out today that you want to hear in it, that you need to feel in it? Chair, do you want to go first? Sure, but my answer's no. I mean, you know, it's like Kendrick,

I just, I like Tendrick sort of what seems to be his grand design, which is, I made the thing. The next thing I do is not going to be the last thing you heard. It's not going to, it's just going to be different. And you're not really going to have anticipated very much of it. You know, I like that. Yeah. I mean, like, it's very difficult to follow up. I mean, it's difficult to follow up like, I guess, the, the, the brand.

So, so to speak. I mean, like, it's very difficult to follow up something so good with something else

and have it be, you know, like having those two things appear that close together, that I don't know what the next album would sound like, but I know that I don't want it

to be this close. Like, I haven't finished thinking about this one yet. Like, there's still too many things to unpack. One thing that I couldn't help

but think about is how Kendrick's peers or regard him. When I wrote about the heart part four, I was thinking about the control remix verse and how openly he defied people that were in his orbit. And now I sort of think of the opposite, which is sort of when he's not talking about his peers, how they must feel about either not being talked about or even just being blown by

in a lot of ways. I always think of Big Sean because Big Sean is like my stand-in for whack present rapper. But what do you guys think? If you're Jay Cole, do you think Jay Cole goes home and listens to this, to Dam and says, like, I got to do better? I would think that, I mean, I don't know. I guess they have that collaborative album in the works.

I have no idea why you would want to get washed on every song. Only Tate Frazier wants that. Yeah, only Tate wants that. But, I mean, I don't know. I feel like, I mean, Jay Cole, I guess, would be, like, Kendrick's notional peer in this sphere of, like, heady, um, world conscious, weary rap music. But, I mean, like, there is Kendrick and then there's 50 feet of space and then there's Jay Cole, like, in this, in the sphere. I don't think that I think that Jake Cole appreciates a Kendrick album

just like the rest of us do. Yeah, I would also say that I think all of these rappers go home and listen to other rappers and think, or other rappers that are in that stratosphere and think I need to do better. You know what I mean? Like they're artists. I think all, I think various kinds of artists are

insecure in that way. I just think the difference with Jay Cole is that Jake Cole is probably never going to make something as captivating as damn. Or to Memple Butterfly or Kid Mad City or Untitled Unmastered even. Yeah. I mean, like, yeah, to be, yeah, to harping, piggybacking off at that point of, like, I think rappers listen to other

rappers' music and with the exception of Lil Wayne, who only rides to himself because he don't fuck with nothing. I think of other people that are not just clearly peers in the notional sense that you're describing, but like does Cuevo listen to Kendrick and think he has to respond to it in some way? Does Chance listen to Kendrick? Does Nikki listen to Kendrick and think I have to be, I have to rise? There's a gulf between rappers like Kendrick and Cuevo exists on the other side of whatever that wall is. And like I don't want.

Any conscious like Migos stuff like their entire draw is how carefree they are. I don't think that's in the offing. I disagree. I disagree with this entirely. Well, just specifically with Quavo,

one of our favorite things about the Migos is the ill-fated Migos debut album which came out before the album that they released a few months ago. Why not? Yeah.

And the thing about that album and their clues all over like mego's songs including fight night but that album really has like the clearest sense of like i don't know there are a couple songs on that album where they're doing like easy e covers songs basically i totally believe yeah i totally believe that um you know as much as i think the migos might get painted is like across offense from the j cole's and the Kendrick's of the world. I actually think that Cuevo and take off and off that probably are, like do have a voracious appetite for that kind of music. And they probably are listening to the Kendrick album. Oh no. I mean like, yeah, man, they eat in rap snacks and listening to,

I'm not saying that they don't listen to it. I'm just saying that like the kind of music that, like, I'm not saying, I'm saying that it doesn't power them forward to make like, I'm going go make my like damn or to pepper butterfly or whatever I think that But imagine Migos is if there's a hell below That's kind of the way I think it would be interesting

To position it you know To put yourself in the mind frame of what informs Kendrick's work to see Because you know that's not I think Lil Wayne certainly informs Migos work But is there Does it go before that? Maybe it does

I don't know I mean like that's a difficult I have no idea what that would sound like we'll probably never find out I mean yeah I prefer them to be emblematic rather than to have them be like demonstrative or in that sense

I guess well put okay let's do something to wrap this up which is just irresponsibly ranking the Kendrick Lamar albums oh god Justin what is your order of preference given that you've had approximately 11 hours to listen to Dam

oh no I mean this is a difficult question Hold on. Okay, we're ranking. I still like to pump a butterfly better than this. I mean, To Puppa Butterfly has the best Kendrick Lamar phone on it, and that sort of the Trump card that album has. But maybe third. Damn, that's a third, and good kid at second.

Yeah. Are you factoring in Section 80 and overly dedicated? I am. Four and five. What about you, Micah? I would say that to Pimp for Butterfly is probably still number one. I think that, yeah, Dan probably does come in third, but it's probably going to move up somewhere, like, in the vicinity of second very soon.

I had the exact same thought. I would have the same order, but I feel like, damn, over the course of the weekend, could quickly climb into number two. Yeah, I think that, like, because to, Pimba Butterfly just like holds a very special place in time for your boy. I think that like, but I think that Dan would probably be, will end up being second by the end of the weekend after I've played it 500 times. I think that, I'm curious what both you guys think about this.

To Pimba Butterfly right now, the way that it's understood in the world is, I think the same way that Illmatic or like Led Zeppelin 4 is understood, which is like this is the person's iconic record. Do you think that that will be true five years from now that Tibinpah Butterfly will still be the standing achievement for Kendrick? I don't. I don't know. You think there's something coming, Justin?

I don't know that it's either something coming or it's just that like, I think that I understand the sort of reception to that album and the first year of its existence, but I also think that that album has a lot of, that album just has such large scenes. And, like, the things that I think are imperfect about that album, I think are things that, yeah, the more time you spend with it,

the more time you sort of realize that, like, it's a sort of perfectly imperfect thing. And in ways that I don't think of other albums that I would sort of put in that echelon. Like, I don't listen to Ilatic and think, oh, this is an awkward song. You know what you mean? An awkward song to be here.

Like, I don't have a ton of exceptions in asterisk or Illmatic. It's just an album that I listen to and I'm like, no, this is exactly. Or like the infamous. The infamous is sort of my favorite rap album. And it's like I don't listen to that album and think, this is like a perfect rap album except for X, Y, and Z. And it has these themes, but it works anyway. But that's very much how I think of it to Bubba Butterfly.

yeah i think it's very fair to say that it's pretty coarsely ground uh but i mean also it just made me so proud to be black man such a black album like and it was probably one of it was just like one of the craziest things i'd heard like in a long time and probably will be for some time afterward i don't know that it'll remain like i don't think that we'll think of it as I don't know. I think it's possible. I wouldn't say, I can't say definitively one more or the other

because, I mean, I don't know. It's, I feel like I've, I haven't even completely, two years, hints, haven't even,

you know, really decided what I, for sure, think about the album. And yet here we are deciding what we think for sure about damn, which is less than a day old. Justin Charity,

Michael Peters, Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Sean. Go cop damn. Thanks, guys.